Challenge the Players, Not the Characters' Stats

[justanobody]

True. But narrating the gameworld in the course of play is playing the game.

While in the position of the DM, I never feel as though I am playing the game. I feel as though I am tossing out obstacles and story for others to enjoy.

When I want to play the game I move to the other side of the DM screen.

Alex Trebek never is considered to be playing Jeopardy is he?

 

[howandwhy99]

So, wait. Wait.

The guy who's all "trust no one, drench all princesses with holy water, bind and gag all captives, THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU" is the one with the fundamental understanding, and the guy who's all "dude, comprehensive paranoia isn't any fun and might send your DM the signal that you crave the very betrayal you're trying to avoid" is the one who doesn't get it?

If that's what you're saying, then color me the antithesis to your thesis.

Nice selective quoting. As I mentioned in my post, neither is batting a 1000 here. You can reread my point on the topic of this thread. Cheating from either Referee or Player diminishes success for the team of players. And storytelling isn't role-play success at all.

True. But narrating the gameworld in the course of play is playing the game.

I feel we're merely repeating ourselves here. As justanobody accurately points out, GMs/DMs/Referees/Judges - gamers were never so confused as to call them Players. They run the game. Don't confuse type 1 with type 2.

 

[Hussar]

So, if I'm understanding this right, DM's never role play? By virtue of being the guy in the big seat, I cannot play a role in the game?

I kinda see what you're saying, but, I'm not really buying it. While a DM might not be role playing 100% of the time, that's not the same thing as saying he never role plays.

I guess I just don't see the problem with mixing roles. Sure, while I'm in narrative mode, I might not be role playing. But, unless I'm 100% in that mode, there are times when I am role playing. My problem with your model is that it's binary. Either you are a role player or you are not. I believe the roles (arrggh) can switch back and forth quite easily.

 

[justanobody]

Me? I was just saying the DM isn't playing the game the same way as the players. He is the major narrator, while the players should be roleplaying more and narrating less.

But again, this has little to do with challenges....

 

[Hussar]

Me? I was just saying the DM isn't playing the game the same way as the players. He is the major narrator, while the players should be roleplaying more and narrating less.

But again, this has little to do with challenges....

Naw, was more directed at HowandWhy. But, yeah, I'd buy what you're saying. That's pretty true. The DM will always be narrating more than the players. But, players having minor narative control doesn't suddenly make them non-role players.

IMO.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The DM will always be narrating more than the players. But, players having minor narative control doesn't suddenly make them non-role players.

An example from my game only today:

One of the players has a rifle with the Thunderburst property - once per day, his next shot becomes a Burst 1 centred on the target.

He was up in the rigging when pirates boarded their ship. There were three of the generic pirates clumped around the leader of the boarding party, 'Big Axe' Van Helt.

"I lean out from my perch in the rigging," the player said, "and fire my rifle at the small keg of gunpowder one of the crew left out on the deck, now sitting near Big Axe's boot."

And he spent his Daily item power to create the Burst 1.

As DM, had I specified a keg of gunpowder? Absolutely not. If he'd tried the same trick without a Thunderburst rifle? I might have allowed something from p42 if he pulled off a skill check first... maybe. But defining the cinematics to describe the mechanics he already had written down on his character sheet? Hell, yeah! I'm more than happy to let him 'remind' me about the keg one of my NPCs left lying around!

Now, did he role-play long enough to lean out of the rigging, stop role-playing, narrate the existence of the gunpowder, then resume roe-playing in order to shoot it?

Bollocks to that, I say. He was role-playing while his character shot a keg of gunpowder.

-Hyp.

 

[IceFractal]

It's not really a hard and fast line - most games fall somewhere between zero and total narrative control, rather than at either extreme, and narrating the "special effects" of mechanical abilities certainly isn't going to inhibit challenging the players.

But there is a real difference, in the state of mind you can approach a challenge from. In a game with little narrative control, you can approach a challenge from the standpoint "I - the player - am going to do everything I can think of to overcome this challenge". In a game with significant narrative control, you can't.


For example, let's say you're trying to find some incriminating documents in the office of a government official. You could try to think where such documents would be hidden, or devise a plan to search quickly without trashing the room ... but if you have the narrative power, you can simple say "I lean back on a wall, accidentally hitting the hidden panel which opens to reveal the documents behind it." This may not work automatically, but in many systems it has as good a chance of working as anything.

So you have to come at problem thinking "I need to solve this in a way that's interesting", which is for some people a step away from direct interaction.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's not really a hard and fast line - most games fall somewhere between zero and total narrative control, rather than at either extreme, and narrating the "special effects" of mechanical abilities certainly isn't going to inhibit challenging the players.

But there is a real difference, in the state of mind you can approach a challenge from. In a game with little narrative control, you can approach a challenge from the standpoint "I - the player - am going to do everything I can think of to overcome this challenge". In a game with significant narrative control, you can't.


For example, let's say you're trying to find some incriminating documents in the office of a government official. You could try to think where such documents would be hidden, or devise a plan to search quickly without trashing the room ... but if you have the narrative power, you can simple say "I lean back on a wall, accidentally hitting the hidden panel which opens to reveal the documents behind it." This may not work automatically, but in many systems it has as good a chance of working as anything.

So you have to come at problem thinking "I need to solve this in a way that's interesting", which is for some people a step away from direct interaction.

Yes, I think this is one of the real differences. In most games, though, you might not always be able to excercise this kind of control (or have to manage when you do it), which creates a different kind of challenge.

I wonder if there is not actually something that makes skills just a "crude" variant of narrative control. As a player, I don't know anything about the history of the Dwarven Kingdom of Bitterstone, so I roll Knowledge (History) to see if my character does. In a way, that is the mechanics given narrative control to the player - he decides that his characters knows something without having to figure it out himself - but the mechanic only allows it with a good dice roll and if he put a high enough score into his history skill.
Or does the mechanic just fall in line with certain goals of narrative play - like when I want to play a historian, I naturally want a mechanic that "guarantees" me that at some point in the game/story, it will be my character knowing something?

I think the big difference is not "Challenge the players, Not the Characters stats", but:
Challenges that require the players to pretend he was in the situation and think of what he would do, and Challenge the player so that he uses the tools given by the mechanics to succeed.
But you will always have a mix of both aspects. Combat will always be partially motivated by "what would I logically do in such a situation?" and "what is the best thing to do according to the rules for combat?".

 

[howandwhy99]

So, if I'm understanding this right, DM's never role play? By virtue of being the guy in the big seat, I cannot play a role in the game?

I kinda see what you're saying, but, I'm not really buying it. While a DM might not be role playing 100% of the time, that's not the same thing as saying he never role plays.

I guess I just don't see the problem with mixing roles. Sure, while I'm in narrative mode, I might not be role playing. But, unless I'm 100% in that mode, there are times when I am role playing. My problem with your model is that it's binary. Either you are a role player or you are not. I believe the roles (arrggh) can switch back and forth quite easily.

It's binary because it's true. Things people can't do in real life, yet somehow manage to do, get called "magic" or "miracles". It's playing God, plain and simple. RPGs like Nobilis actually make sense when they use the "NAR" mechanics and put God playing reality right up front.

If it helps to understand it, try thinking about the DM's role in the game (#1, heh) from the perspective of the Big Model. If role-playing is exploring, then the only time a GM gets to explore is when he's acting an NPC, type #3 role-play. He's exploring their personality. He can't rightly explore anything in the world as he is the encyclopedia for that world. There can be no secrets from him (that the players don't keep by being the character). He cannot tell a joke to himself. He cannot solve a mystery, a riddle, or discover any aspect of the world by trying to "role-play" (#2) a DMPC. It's the whole reason DMPCs do not work in RPGs.

For full disclosure, if you do swap DMing duties in the same Campaign World it can be possible. The party simply must explore different things in that world. I assume this is pretty well known stuff?

snip
-Hyp.

As you can guess, I disagree. Your Player is playing the model, which is normal as the referenced world doesn't really exist. But as your example shows, some 4E combat mechanics aren't modelling anything in the world. So the player is left lashing about for a good reason why it would make any sense at all in the imagined world. Could that one aspect have been sensibly defined earlier? Sure. But using mechanics without any fictional world reference does not mean you're role-playing when trying to grab immersion back, that attempt to get back into character by any means possible, through playing God.

 

[Hypersmurf]

But as your example shows, some 4E combat mechanics aren't modelling anything in the world.

Sure they are. At its most literal, it's modelling a magical weapon that makes the projectile explode on impact.

So the player is left lashing about for a good reason why it would make any sense at all in the imagined world.

I didn't see any lashing; all I saw was Awesome.

Could that one aspect have been sensibly defined earlier?

It was sensibly defined earlier, when the crewman left the keg of gunpowder on the deck.

We as players just didn't know it was defined earlier, until it was pointed out in that combat round.

But using mechanics without any fictional world reference does not mean you're role-playing when trying to grab immersion back, that attempt to get back into character by any means possible, through playing God.

But when Assem leans out of the rigging and blows up Big Axe and his henchmen with his rifle, the player who's causing that to happen is being a roleplayer I'll sit down with any time.

-Hyp.